Automatic cigarette packing machines are normally supplied together with a maker's table listing various machine performance indexes (e.g. output per hour, faults per hour, average downtime, etc.) and respective acceptance ranges. And to evaluate the efficiency of a machine, the user determines the actual value of one or more performance indexes, compares the actual value with the respective acceptance range indicated by the maker, and, in the event one or more performance indexes are outside the respective acceptance ranges, proceeds to program maintenance and/or inspection of the machine accordingly.
Though widely used by cigarette manufacturers, the above method of evaluating the efficiency of an automatic cigarette packing machine has been found to result, in some situations, in the programming and performance of substantially pointless maintenance and/or inspection work, and, in other situations, in the performance of maintenance and/or inspection work with a certain delay with respect to occurrence of the problem.